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Data analytics company GlobaData says, e-commerce is playing a critical role in the fight against COVID-19 as online retailers are experiencing a flood of orders from customers confined to their homes. This view was expressed in the company’s recently-released report ‘COVID-19 Impact on E-commerce.’
The report states, even the most skeptical consumers are forced to abandon physical stores in response to restrictions on movement. Supermarkets are experiencing unprecedented demand for home grocery delivery and the UK online food and grocery market is expected to grow by nearly 20 per cent in 2020 to £13.2 billion. However, social distancing measures have dealt a significant blow to clothing and footwear retailers. GlobalData forecasts a 7.9 per cent drop in online sales from 2019 levels. However, online retailers will still be able to grab market share from their high street rivals as they will focus on technologies such as the cloud, 5G, IoT, and blockchain to improve their efficiency and robustness. Ecommerce will also help worst effected companies to build momentum once more once lockdown restrictions have been lifted.
Albini Group, best known as a dress shirt fabric supplier to companies including Kering, Armani, Ermenegildo Zegna and Prada, has developed new ViroFormula fabrics, in collaboration with Swiss textile innovation firm HeiQ that can destroy COVID-19 a few minutes after contact.
The antiviral fabrics have the same look and feel of its other luxury materials, and it has already received orders from leading luxury firms, though it declined to name them. The technology, developed by Albini and HeiQ, works by targeting the fatty chromosomes that surround viruses when they touch the fabric, destroying them within a matter of minutes. The most significant drawback is impermanence. The HeiQ tests show the solution will be deactivated after 30 washes, though Tamburini hopes to develop a means of retreating clothing to restore the antiviral properties when necessary.
Antibacterial treatment of clothing was already relatively widespread before the Covid-19 outbreak, marketed as a way consumers could critically reduce the frequency of washing their clothes but the pandemic has hastened demand for its protective qualities. Albini is the first major luxury fashion player to enter this sphere, with Grado in India and Sonovia in Israel among the firms now also marketing similar treatments for clothing.
To counter falling sales, Asics has increased its focus on digital sales and also sped up its planned development of products in China to capitalize on an expected rebound as stores around the world reopen. The brand also reduced its spending on marketing.
In North America, the company increased the discount for health-care workers and first responders to 60 percent and also provided free access to its Asics Studio app, allowing all consumers to utilize its library of at-home workouts. The brand is also partnering with its retail partners to provide shoe donations to front-line workers as well as T-shirts for screen-printing and fund-raising efforts.
In the first quarter ended March 31, the overall sales of Asics North America dropped by 18.4 percent year-over-year, with sales in Mexico declining by 10 percent and while those in Canada falling by 5.5 percent. In the US market, the brand also saw a 14.2 percent decrease in performance running product.
For the corporation as a whole, the operating loss in the first quarter was 882 million yen, or $8.2 million, compared with operating income of 6.2 billion yen in last year’s first quarter. Net sales fell 13.5 percent to 85.3 billion yen, or $793.4 million, from 98.7 billion yen in the first quarter of 2019. However, the brand’s e-commerce sales jumped by 60 percent in the period.
By category, Asics’ performance running sales declined by 11.5 percent to 38 billion yen from 43 billion yen in the first quarter of last year, with operating income falling 87 percent to 239 million from 1.8 billion yen last year.
BGMEA plans to blacklist British clothing retailer Edinburgh Woollen Mill (EWM) in Bangladesh for not paying suppliers. According to BGMEA, EWM has so far cancelled work orders worth $8.2 million in Bangladesh due to the COVID-19 outbreak.
EWM's affiliates, including the brands and retailers Peacock, Jaeger, Austin Reed, Jacque Vert, Country Casuals, Windsmoor, Baumler of Germany, Bonmarche, Ponden Home, and various agents, importers, full service vendors and other third parties which have been working indirectly and/or directly with each of these companies and brands, are also under threat of being blacklisted, Huq said in the letter to Philip Day.
BGMEA has stated that until pending issues are settled and agreed, the associations will not issue any new Utilisation Declarations to its members for any order of EWM, which includes all its affiliates and associates. Similarly, BEPZA may also withhold issuance of Export Processing.
BGMEA had earlier requested EWM to comply with the requirements and settle all outstanding dues as prescribed, adding that it would blacklist and place an embargo on the retailer and its agents otherwise.
Moody’s Investors Service, in its latest Global Trade Monitor report has, stated COVID-19 pandemic is hindering the progress on the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) negotiations which may cause the agreement to not conclude by year-end as envisioned. WTO predicts global trade to contract between 13 per cent and 32 per cent this year amid a sharp decline in consumer demand, investment and supply disruptions. According to Moody’s the key reasons for this are the Coronavirus-induced drop in consumer demand and investment in the current quarter, and disruptions along supply chains and shipping routes resulting from lockdowns.
The rating agency expects consumer demand to only recover gradually in the second half of the year. COVID-19 will also lead to more fragmentation of trade in essential goods as more than 90 countries have imposed restrictions or bans on exports of medical and food supplies, as shortages pose unprecedented challenges for governments and health systems.
RCEP is a proposed free trade agreement (FTA) in the Asia-Pacific region between the 10-member states of Asean, namely, Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. Five of Asean’s FTA partners including Australia, China, Japan, New Zealand and South Korea are also part of RCEP.
India, which is also Asean’s FTA partner, opted out of RCEP in November 2019, claiming its key concerns were not addressed.
Several renowned brands in the US are reopening stores as lockdown rules are relaxed. After Columbia and Hudson’s Bay announced reopening of stores early, athletic apparel retailer Lululemon is slowly reopening its stores and welcoming the shoppers. The retailer reopened over 150 stores across North America, Europe, Asia, Australia and New Zealand on 21 May, around 200 more stores are all set to reopen over a period of next two weeks. It is ensuring all local Government and public health authority guidelines and instructions are followed while reopening the stores in a phased manner.
TJX, which owns TJ Maxx and Marshalls, too has reopened over 1,600 stores across the globe. While, the brand has reopened its stores fully or partially in 25 US states, in other countries such as Germany, Austria and the Netherlands, the stores are fully operational. Stores in the UK are still closed.
TJX will also reopen stores in phased manner following all social distancing protocols. The brand hopes to reopen majority of its stores by the end of June.
Organised by Informa Markets Fashion, the Magic Las Vegas Marketplace—which also houses other key trade events like the Project, Sourcing and Micam Americas shows—will be postponed from its original dates of August 17-19 to September 29-October 1.
Taking place at the Las Vegas Convention center, the format of the events will honor the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s health and safety guidelines for social distancing and sanitation, the group said in a statement. While the events have historically taken place in August to respect the industry’s buying cycles, the decision to postpone the show aligns with the continued uncertainty being felt across the country with regard to retail’s reopening.
The decision may benefit wary attendees who aren’t quite ready to leave the safety of their homes for a crowded convention center just yet. A recently released report from IBM shows that three-quarters of consumers are unlikely to attend a conference or trade show this year due to the risks associated with highly attended in-person events.
In September, the event will be held with a new, more considerate layout. Separate, intimate micro-markets will take place within the same venue to make way for social distancing guidelines, crowd-control measures and cleaning protocols. While the fashion community is undoubtedly eager to connect, and brands have devoted valuable time and effort to the logistics surrounding the show, the decision to postpone is in everyone’s best interest, according to Nancy Walsh, president of Informa Fashion Markets. The group will review the situation on an ongoing basis, she said.
The group is also investing in advanced digital solutions to support brands and retailers preparing for the spring and summer markets. These virtual events and initiatives will complement the keystone physical trade shows.
Around 419 RMG factories in Bangladesh have remained closed for the last two months as the global buyers halted placing orders.
Of these 419 factories, nearly one hundred units went for permanent closure and the rest are waiting for work orders to resume production. Production in 348 member factories of the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association and 71 factories registered with the Bangladesh Knitwear Manufacturers and Exporters Association had remained suspended since the last week of March.
Of the 348 factories, 91 are located in Gazipur, 79 at Ashulia in Dhaka, 70 in Narayanganj, 67 in Chattogram and 40 units are located in the Dhaka city. BKMEA leaders said that 71 of their member factories had remained closed for the last two months due to lack of work orders and a few of them went for permanent closure.
The country’s apparel sectors’ trade bodies on March 25 announced production closure in the RMG factories in line with the general holidays announced by the government to contain the coronavirus outbreak in the country.
The factory owners started reopening the factories from April 26 with the consent from the government amid the surge of infection of coronavirus. According to BGMEA data, a total of 1,150 member factories of the trade body reported that the global buyers cancelled orders worth $3.18 billion due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Amazon plans to take over collapsed US department-store giant JC Penney in a move that could redefine the nature of US retailing. The retailer has a team of senior management and consultants at JC Penney’s Texas headquarters going through the numbers and the store portfolio.
And while JC Penney is planning to permanently shutter 245 of its 846 stores across the country as part of a restructure under Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, Amazon may take over as much as the entire fleet.
The Seattle-based company already dominates the US e-commerce market with a market share of around 49 percent. Small businesses across the US reportedly sell some 4000 items every minute on the platform.
However, as a digital-native company, Amazon has very little physical presence in the form of brick-and-mortar stores. It bought the upmarket Whole Foods grocery chain in 2017 which it has now expanded to 500 stores in the US and it also developed a high-tech, small-format hybrid grocery-convenience store model called Amazon Go which now numbers 26 outlets.
Apparel chain Gap Inc is speeding the rollout of robots in its warehouses for assembling online orders in order to limit human contact during the coronavirus pandemic.
Gap reached a deal early this year to more than triple the number of item-picking robots it uses to 106 by the fall. Then the pandemic struck North America, forcing the company to close all its stores in the region, including those of Banana Republic, Old Navy and other brands. Meanwhile, its warehouses faced more web orders and fewer staff to fulfill them because of social distancing rules Gap had put in place.
Though sourcing parts in time for the eight-foot-tall robotic stations was not simple or cheap, the venture-backed startup was able to deploy 10 of them to Gap's warehouse near Nashville, Tennessee and 20 near Columbus, Ohio, with plans to finish the rollout to four of Gap's five U.S. facilities by July, months ahead of schedule, he said.
Each of these machines handles work typically performed by four people, Kuntz said. Neither the deal to triple the number of robots, nor the expedited installations have been previously reported.
